Atma-Sphere vs Pass Labs Class A

Warren, have you lived with some Class A solid state amps that run cooler than Class A tube amps (of comparable power output)? My experience is that it's the Class A operation that makes the amps run so hot, not that it's tube vs. solid state. Just curious if your experience is different than mine.

I've not compared the Atma-Sphere with the Pass Labs, and yes I sweat through the warm weather with my A-S MA-2s, too.

It will surprise me if anyone has compared these two brands on speakers that match both equally well.

Very well said. They are designed with fundamentally different philosophies, and among other things have drastically different output impedances. Ralph has an excellent paper on this at his site:

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html

Regards,
-- Al

Thanks for the input. All other things being equal, I guess given the lack of difference in heat output, I will stick with what is working well for me now.

Al, thank you for the link to Ralph's paper...

XA60.5 draw 200W per chassis; M-60 draw 300W per chassis.

Dealer disclaimer.

I'm sure Ralph would tell you if your speakers would be a good match for his amplifiers. 300 series Rowland amps run quite cool and are very "tube like".